


never leave alone from a corner table

by earlofcardigans, tascioni



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, clint barton's comfort food is ketchup, phil coulson's comfort food is chocolate milkshakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlofcardigans/pseuds/earlofcardigans, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tascioni/pseuds/tascioni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Phil have most of their meaningful conversations over fries and milkshakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never leave alone from a corner table

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'The Coffee Song' by Cream.
> 
> Thanks to why_me_why_not for the excellent beta and being the best friend ever. tascioni for her amazing art which can be found [here](http://earlofcardigans.livejournal.com/539191.html) and putting up with me in emails. and IronPunk for holding my hand all the time.

_Prologue_

Clint sat in the same booth for six days. He had nowhere to go and no money to get there, and he had to plan his escape, except he was eleven and he didn’t know what to do.

He was too young to plan much.

He felt much older than he wanted to be.

Mostly he wanted people that wanted him. He wasn’t sure why he was always left, but. He was. It had to be him.

A fresh soda and some fries were set down in front of him. He looked up at Paula and tried to smile, wanting to say thanks but no. He couldn’t afford a refill.

“It’s okay, darling. I put it on your tab.” She smiled at him in that sad way that grown-ups had been doing for longer than he could remember.

“Thanks, Paula.” Clint messed with the straw paper, folding it into a tiny point. “Want me to take out the garbage or something? Clean tables?”

“We’re good today. Maybe you can come by in the morning and do that?” She wiped her hands off on her apron.

Clint wondered briefly if he’d have to wear one of those.

He looked at her then. “What time?”

“We open at seven.” She nodded at him.

“I’ll be here then, ma’am.” Clint dragged his straw through the water collected on the table.

It was his first real job. Maybe he was too young for that, too, but it was something he decided to take seriously.

And it came with food, which was practical. Clint had been practical for a really long time.

At least since he was five.  
**

 

When Coulson found him, Clint had been shot through the thigh and was bleeding slowly and thoughtfully all over a concrete floor. After a round with a medic and then a round with some handcuffs, Clint had a round with Coulson.

He hadn’t introduced himself yet, and Clint kept calling him The Suit. (In his head, Coulson was always The Suit, except that now that Clint knew him better, he was the agent under it more.

Natasha teased him relentlessly about how much he speculated about what exactly was under Coulson’s suit.)

What he had never told Natasha, though, was that when they first met, Clint was grateful that it was a suit and not a cop. And that he had wanted to know how he had kept handcuffs concealed on him like that.

Those thoughts had kept him from passing out, crying, or talking too much.

When Coulson came back to collect his cuffs, and coincidently Clint, he had the stupid urge to apologize. Coulson looked harried and tired and like it was Clint’s fault. Clint didn’t know where he had learned the definition of the word ‘harried’ but whatever, it applied to Coulson like no one else he had ever met.

Coulson just looked at him, though, and said, “I’m Agent Coulson. If you can hold off on your questions until we vacate the premises, I’d be grateful. And I promise I’ll answer everything as truthfully as I can.”

He nodded at Coulson and followed him almost blindly into the car, out of it, and into a diner.

Coulson leaned his elbows on the table they occupied and regarded Clint with such contemplation that he fidgeted more than he had in a long time.

“Tell me, Mr. Barton,” Coulson started. His tone was all soft sounds of inquiry. “How did you manage to get yourself involved in that unpleasant situation?”

“Can I have a soda first?” Clint sprawled across from Coulson, taking up as much room as he could, propping his injured leg on the seat next to him.

“Of course, but your deflecting techniques aren’t going to work with me. You’ll answer the question.”

Clint narrowed his eyes and stared at Coulson. He wasn’t playing Clint’s staring game. Clint got the feeling he felt as if he were above such childish things, but Clint tried anyway, trying to show Coulson that he couldn’t boss him around.

Except then he arched an eyebrow at him, and Clint sang like a canary.

That was the only time he had underestimated Coulson.

After they had ordered food, most of which Clint was too queasy to finish, Coulson had looked at him curiously and asked, “Have you been here before? Do you know if their milkshakes are any good?”

Clint laughed at him, leaned his head back on the booth and closed his eyes. “I don’t have a clue, man. Order three. Knock yourself out.”

“I doubt I could finish three. Maybe one to go, though.” Coulson was talking to himself, and Clint wanted to listen to him until he fell asleep in the uncomfortable booth.  
**

 

Clint was resolutely not tired. Tired was for people who weren’t sitting in a tree with a sniper rifle. Tired was for people who hadn’t been in the same spot for sixteen hours. He was not tired.

Clint had been tired. This was not it.

“Sitwell. Please tell me we are almost finished with this kiddie op and I can get the hell down from here.”

Clint was really fucking tired of talking to himself, though.

“We’ll be finished, Hawkeye, when we’re finished. Now shut up, sit still, and pay attention.”

 _Coulson_.

Clint had no idea when he had gotten there or taken over, but he was much better at following Coulson’s orders because he knew that he would be down from the tree in less than an hour. Clint thought about setting his stopwatch.

He smiled to himself and didn’t think about tired or hungry or leaving. He thought about Coulson deciding things had gone on long enough and how they’d be in a truck headed somewhere that wasn’t there as soon as possible.

Clint had eyes on everything. Nothing was his target, but it didn’t matter. Coulson had eyes on him, so he could finally breathe easier. Nothing against Sitwell, Clint just didn’t trust him enough to have his back like he might need.

 

Forty-two minutes later, Clint was on the ground, gear stowed and waiting patiently for Coulson to tell him which wheels were his, where they were headed, and an ETA.

Things didn’t look different from below this time. Clint had spent so much time to himself in the damned tree, he memorized every crack in the pavement and missing brick from the buildings surrounding him.

When Coulson found him and tossed him keys, Clint had a count of leaves and scarves and agents that looked like ants from farther back, higher up.

Clint snatched the keys and followed Coulson to his own car. After he started it and snapped the seatbelt, he turned to watch Coulson struggle with his.

“Need help?” Clint didn’t know when Coulson had decided to put his arm in a sling. It bothered him a little to not know. Coulson wasn’t really his responsibility and he didn’t keep as many tabs on him as he did Natasha, but he was in the business of surveillance. And sometimes Coulson did fascinating things with paperwork and condiments.

He didn’t wait for Coulson to answer him, just reached over him, clicked his seatbelt, and waited.

Well tried to wait. “Where to?” Clint was great at waiting; it was most of his job. He could be still and practically invisible for longer than anyone. He knew because he had challenged everyone he met. He also asked too many questions. He knew it, and he didn’t care. Clint liked answers, liked knowing everything that was happening.

Clint liked this view of the world most of the time. It had helped him when he was younger, helped him figure out the circus, and now it helped him navigate the world he found himself in with SHIELD.

Coulson rolled his head over the seat and looked at him. Really looked at him, not like some of the agents he normally had to work with that just looked past him or never quite met his eyes. Clint appreciated that in Coulson. (He didn’t really appreciate it in Fury though. It was always awkward when that happened.)

“I don’t care, Barton. Somewhere with food.” Coulson shrugged at him. “Got a favorite place here? You’ve been here longer.”

“I know a place.” Clint turned left out of the makeshift SHIELD compound. “So, Coulson.” Answers. Clint just wanted all the answers before he went further. “Why are you here?”

“I needed you back.” Coulson turned to look out at the passing road. Clint wasn’t going that fast and things were still green here. “I needed Sitwell too. But you’ve got things that can’t be taken care of from a tree.”

“I don’t know. I think I could probably do anything from a tree.” Clint smiled a little. He had thought about it a lot while he wasn’t thinking about being tired.

He was still not thinking about how tired he was, or how tired Coulson looked, or why Coulson had to collect him personally.

“I have no doubt that you could conduct your entire life from a makeshift treehouse, but what you do in your off time is your own business, and I’d rather not have to make paper airplanes out of your mission dockets if that’s okay with you.” Coulson was smiling. Clint could tell even if he couldn’t see his face.

“I have no doubt those would be the best constructed paper airplanes anyone has ever seen, sir.” Clint smiled back.

“Shut up and drive me to some food already, Barton.”

Definitely less tired now.

 

When they got there, Clint didn’t say a word. He undid Coulson’s seatbelt and then his own. He held the door open for them both and followed Coulson to the counter.

Coulson propped his elbow on it and flipped through the menu he found beside him like it held the answers to the world. Clint just waited.

It was a diner. Diner food was all the same wherever you went, and Clint had learned over the years that it was quite possibly the only thing he had close to a good childhood memory. Diners held good talks, ice cream sundaes, free coffee, places to read, people to watch.

They had been the only place he’d ever felt at home.

A cold soda with a bendy straw was placed in front of him, and Clint grinned at the chipped nail polish of the hand that was wrapped around the glass.

He looked up as he said, “Darlene. How you doing?”

“Can’t complain, sugar, can’t complain.” She gestured with her pen at Coulson. “Bring a friend this evening? Y’all headed out then?”

“He came to pick me up.” Clint nodded. “Apparently, I’m needed elsewhere.”

“Well, you are too pretty to keep to myself, I guess. Y’all need a minute?” She glanced at Coulson. “You want some tea or something, honey?”

Coulson glanced from her to Clint and back. He smiled at her, genuine and tired around the edges. “No thanks. Water’s fine, ma’am.”

“’Ma’am!’ Didn’t you just bring the cutest person in here, sugar?”

“Darlene, you know it’s not polite to make people blush before dessert.” Clint grinned at her again as she swayed off.

“Friend of yours?” Coulson asked him mildly.

“I may have been in here a few times.” Clint shrugged.

“What do you recommend, then?” Coulson swiveled to stare at him, smile still hanging on his face.

Clint raised his eyebrows. “Well, I usually just eat whatever she brings me. There was meatloaf. It’s all been good.”

Coulson nodded and went back to the menu.

“Where are we headed after this?” Clint was back to needing more answers.

Coulson drummed his fingers on the counter top and Clint watched his brain work. Coulson was trying to decide how much of the truth to tell Clint. Sometimes Clint missed it when he did that, but he knew that Coulson answered to people so Clint didn’t have to. He didn’t think about it. Much anyway.

Darlene headed back their way and Clint waved a hand at her and told her to surprise him like he told Coulson and waited.

“Oh, wait. And a side of fries.”

Coulson flipped to the back of the menu and then slowly closed it. “I’ll have a tuna melt, a cup of soup of the day, and a chocolate milkshake.”

“Good choice. You still want the fries with the melt or just soup?” Darlene was still writing.

Coulson looked at him and then back to her. “Yeah, better bring the fries.”

Clint winked at Darlene as she left and turned back to Coulson.

“Milkshakes, Coulson. Always with the chocolate milkshakes.” Clint shook his head at him.

“Sometimes I like peanut butter.” Coulson shrugged.

“You’re a fount of wonder, Coulson. Never would have guessed.” Clint leaned his elbows on the counter this time.

“You like peanut butter milkshakes, Barton? If you do, I want you to order your own.” Coulson cut his eyes at Clint over his shoulder. “I don’t share well.”

Clint mock saluted him. “Duly noted, sir. Milkshakes. If I want one, get my own.”

“That’s what I like to hear, Agent.” Coulson looked at Clint, then back over his shoulder at the door.  
**

 

Clint knocked on the door and waited. He had gotten much better with the waiting, but sometimes he still wanted to fidget. Waiting was slowly taking over his life. Waiting had always been there, but now it was his life. His SHIELD life. Things had been increasingly weird for him recently. Weird he could do. Weird was his friend.

Coulson opened the door in a grey t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. He was rubbing at his eyes and still managed to stare at Clint like he was asking a dumb question during mission briefing.

“Hey.” Clint stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and tried to simultaneously look and not look at Coulson.

“Barton.” Coulson leaned against the open door a little closer to him.

“Coulson,” he said back in the same tone.

“Well, might as well come on in. Explain to me why you’re here.” Coulson stepped back, but Clint didn’t move until Coulson started turning his back on him.

He settled into Coulson’s couch with the bottle of water Coulson passed him and waited. He thought Coulson would break the silence, ask him why he was there, but he didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at Clint really. He had picked up his crossword and pen and resumed what he was doing before Clint had shown up.

Of course, Coulson completed the crossword in pen. The jackass.

Clint cleared his throat. “Natasha left.”

Coulson tipped his paper down. “I know.”

Clint stared at him, slightly betrayed. He knew. He knew and didn’t bother to tell Clint about it. He knew and didn’t think it was something Clint might want to know. Clint dropped his head into his hands, scrubbed them over his face.

“Clint,” Coulson said in a low tone.

Clint popped his head up and stared at him hard.

Coulson leveled him with a look. “You’re in my house, on my couch. I figured I could dispense with the propriety for now.” Coulson raised an eyebrow. “It won’t extend to every circumstance.”

Clint snorted. “Of course not.” Clint looked at him sideways, found him sincere. “Phil.”

“Natasha is gone because she needed to.” Coulson explained in a voice Clint hadn’t heard since he was new and skittish and untrusting. “She needed something. To find something. Or. I’m not sure.”

“But I’m here.” Clint pulled his feet up onto the couch with him and waited for Coulson to scold him. “What else-“

“She’s not the same as you, Clint. She. She’s not the same,” Coulson explained.

Clint didn’t understand all of it, but he could fill in the lines with his waiting, with his patience, because Natasha needed something to come back to.

“She’ll come back?” Clint asked him. Coulson shrugged.

“No, Phil,” Clint pressed. “I need.” Clint didn’t have any idea what he needed. A friend. Natasha to be real. Him not to have risked everything for someone that was going to desert him.

He needed Coulson to do everything he could to protect him. Lie, even.

Clint waited. Waited for the lie. Waited for what he knew to be what he’d hang the rest of his career on. He didn’t know how not to risk everything, his new life, for one. Or two, people he could count on for everything.

Coulson looked him right in the eye. Clint waited.

“I don’t know, Clint. I hope she’ll be back. I gave her instructions. Explicit. If she doesn’t return, we’ll go after her again.” Coulson nodded at him, urging him to believe. “We’ll bring her home.”

 _Home_.

A place he never had before.

Clint relaxed back into the couch, calculated unwinding movements. Coulson didn’t move, careful not to startle him.

When he finally looked away, Clint almost whispered, “Got any food around here, Phil?”

Coulson sighed and looked at him over the top of his paper.

“There’s snacks in the cabinet next to the fridge.” He glanced toward the kitchen and then back to Clint. “We’ll go for breakfast in a few hours.”

Clint didn’t move. “Can we go to Brooklyn?” He liked the place the best. It reminded him of where he came from.

“Brooklyn,” Coulson drew it out, thoughtful. “Sure. But you’re paying.”

Clint didn’t laugh. Instead, he hid a small smile and sighed with something like relief.  
**

 

Clint’s hearing came back to him in a sudden rush. He tried to catch his breath and listen, but it was proving too difficult to do both.

When he tuned back in, he heard Phil. He was more relieved by that than he should have been.

“Barton,” Phil said like he’d already repeated it a thousand times. “Talk to me.”

“Got eyes on him, Coulson. Bringing him to you.” Stark. Good. Clint could hitch a ride.

“Next time,” he tried before having to cough and remember how to breathe again. “Next time, I get a battleax.”

“Oh, Barton. Don’t you know the rules?” Stark shot back at him, relief coloring his voice as well.

“You build it. I use it.” Clint tipped his head back on the ground and stared down the sky. He had parted smoke and clouds with his gaze. He needed to see clear blue.

“Hawkeye, there’s a ‘one outdated and-or impractical weapon per Avenger’ rule.” Iron Man landed in front of him. “Remember that. You’re already one for one on outdated, buddy.” Stark’s visor slid back and he grinned down at Clint. “Wanna get out of here?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Clint attempted simpering and ruined it with a cough.

After touching down and untangling his arms from Stark, Clint found Coulson bearing down on him. He did not need a lecture for being reckless right now. Especially not from Coulson.

Clint turned back to Stark. “So. Are you outdated or impractical?”

“He’s clearly impractical, Barton. Haven’t you met him?” Phil said from right beside him like he didn’t look ready to strangle Clint, like his fists weren’t clenched.

“Impractical! Of all the-” Stark pointed a metal finger at them both. “Impractical is what got you this gig. Remember that.”

As Iron Man took off again, Clint turned to Phil. “And here I thought I got the gig because I was prettiest.”

Phil said nothing. He turned on his heel and headed straight back the way he came.

Clint followed him.

“Am I getting a lecture?” Clint asked from the opposite side of the building from Phil.

“Would it do any good?” Phil sighed.

Clint grinned at him, but he wasn’t feeling it. He hoped Phil bought it.

“Probably not.”

Phil rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Report to medical. I’ll see you back at Stark’s in two hours.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint snapped back. “Want me to have a sandwich ready for you when you get there?”

Phil glared at him for a second. “That’d be nice, Barton. You can start paying me back for dying all over the field today.”

The fight left Clint. He didn’t have it in him to feel like he was run over by a Thor _and_ fight with Phil for whatever reason this was.

He turned around and went in search of the medics. He thought about picking up his arrows and delaying the inevitable with Phil.

None of it made him feel great.

 

After, Steve came to collect him and take him home. Not that he needed an escort, Steve said, just that they both wanted to go home.

And Clint had. He wanted a shower, wanted to talk to Natasha, wanted to go bed and forget about his entire life for a few hours. He remembered after he got through the front door that he had sandwich duty with Phil. Which Clint knew meant a lecture. Well, at least there was food.

He peeled off from Steve and headed to the kitchen.

Bruce, Natasha, and Phil were already there. Everyone turned as he crossed to the island.

“Phil got spicy mustard,” Natasha waved her sandwich at him in greeting.

Phil turned around and propped himself on the kitchen counter and watched Clint.

“Thanks for dinner, Agent Coulson. I think I’ll go read.” Bruce patted Clint’s shoulder on his way out of the kitchen.

Clint slid into Bruce’s vacated seat. “Is it that fancy French shit you always buy?”

“No. It’s the spicy mustard you like. I know you’re fussy.” Phil grinned but it was easily washed off his face and the same pensiveness was back.

“Thought I was on sandwich duty.” Clint picked at the crusts on Natasha’s plate while he waited for Phil to say something or feed him.

“I think you can be on cupcake duty with Pepper tomorrow.”

“Is that a mission, sir? Not forgetting the coconut cream?” Clint said in a harder tone than he meant.

“I figured I’d feed you so you had your mouth full while I talked to you.” Phil started pulling all the sandwich fixings back to him.

“Did you need me to leave?” Natasha asked. She had pulled up one knee onto her stool and was contemplating the polish on her toes. It was still the ugly orange Clint had put there weeks ago.

“No. I think Clint’s going to need to hear it from more than just me.” Phil set down everything carefully and turned back to Clint.

He looked him right in the eye for the first time since they left the field.

“I’m not unhappy with you or your performance, and it’s not a lecture.” Clint started to say how it felt like one but Phil slashed his hand in the air, stopping him. “Not like you think.”

“How am I supposed to take this? You’re ganging up on me.” Clint sat perfectly still and waited.

Clint sometimes, in moments of weird clarity, could admit that he waited for the other shoe to drop, waited for the moment they had decided he had messed up enough.

“Phil doesn’t see it that way, Clint.” Natasha hooked her pinky finger around his.

“You know you don’t have to take the big risks, right?” Phil asked him quietly, calmly. He was staring at Clint again, though and the intensity there compelled Clint to stare back.

“It’s not a big risk.”

“It is to me. When I don’t have eyes on you, when I can’t determine your threat level.” Phil sighed. “When you don’t trust me.”

Clint’s eyebrows drew together. “But I do.”

Phil finished Clint’s sandwich and went to the fridge to rummage for something.

“Do you?” When Phil set a soda with a bendy straw in front of him and kept one for himself, Clint realized.

He trusted Phil almost more than anyone else. 

It had taken a while, and maybe he still didn’t trust him as much as Natasha, but Phil hadn’t been there when Natasha had stitched Clint up and carried him and kept him from falling apart in all the ways that counted.

Maybe Clint did risk himself more. Maybe he felt that being an Avenger meant he had to.

He could slow down. And he could unbend enough to meet Phil in the middle. Coulson was willing, and Clint had followed him into rougher places before.

He couldn’t promise, but he’d try.

He nodded at Phil and finished his sandwich.  
**

 

Clint turned a corner and found a disgruntled looking Phil Coulson stalking his way.

When he got closer, Clint saw that Phil had his suit jacket off and something unidentifiable all over his shirt.

“What happened to you?” Clint asked, startling Phil from his inspection of his shirt. “And more importantly why are you here to let something happen to you?”

“Work, Barton. Some people have to do it every day.” Phil huffed out a breath. Clint could tell he was clearly uncomfortable in his now ruined shirt. He kind of wanted to laugh at him.

“Some people take days off.” Clint shrugged. He wasn’t going to lecture anyone on working too hard. He got bored. He knew Phil loved what he did and probably got bored, too. Or more likely, didn’t want anyone else doing a piss poor job when he could get it done efficiently and swiftly.

Part of the reason Clint liked Phil the most.

“Yes, well.” Phil smirked at him ruefully. “We’re not most people.”

Clint laughed a little.

“Want to borrow some clothes? There’s a guest shower around here somewhere.”

Coulson nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yes, please. That’s probably the best plan.” He looked back at his shirt in disgust. “Then I’ll burn this suit and charge Stark for the price of a new one.”

“Charge him for the price of two.” Clint shook his head. “I’ll go find you something. JARVIS can tell me where you are.”

“Thanks.” Coulson smiled at him in the way he usually reserved for when Stark was being particularly pedantic. Their lives were ridiculous.

“Hey Phil.” Clint called out after him. He watched him turn back around, eyebrows raised in mild curiosity. “Wanna go to Brooklyn later?” Clint shrugged a shoulder. “If you’re done with work, I mean.”

Phil quirked his head in a small movement. Clint didn’t know if it meant he caught him by surprise or what, but he believed in doing what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it. Not that he always acted on it, but he believed in it.

And he wanted to have breakfast with Phil.

“Sure. Yeah. Getting doused in hell knows what is enough for the day.” Phil started walking again. “Meet you in the kitchen in an hour?”

Clint nodded his yes and carried off down the hall.

 

After sitting in their favorite booth, Phil asked him about the shirt he was wearing.

"Iowa State?" Phil pulled the shirt out from his chest and examined the bird on it.

"University of Iowa. Hawkeyes." Clint shrugged. Just because he didn't go to college, didn't mean he didn't have favorites.

"Well that makes sense." Phil was laughing at him. Not that Clint cared. When he made Phil laugh, it was a good day.

"Okay, now it's my turn." Clint put down his menu and stretched his arms out across the back of his booth.

"Your turn for what?" Phil looked dubious. "You aren't ordering for me ever again."

Clint grinned at him. "Okay, no. You have to admit that was a great meal."

Phil looked at him again with that same look like he couldn't believe Clint was able to get up in the morning and not put pants on his head. Clint didn't want to get too far into it, but he kind of lived for that look. 

"I don't think you understand what a great meal is," Phil challenged.

"Says the guy who only eats tuna melts."

"Not only. Just when you're around."

Clint was surprised. Except not really.

Phil lifted an eyebrow at him, looked past him to the door.

"You won't steal my food that way."

"Do you even like tuna melts?" Clint didn't put it past him to eat something he didn't like just to make sure Clint wouldn't steal it. Phil did strange things. Well, to be fair, they all did strange things. It was just that Clint was more likely to notice when Phil did them.

"Love 'em."

"You're deranged, Phil." Clint shook a finger at him.

"So I've been told. What did you really want to ask me, though?" He had that tiny smile that said that no matter what Clint asked, he probably wasn't getting an answer. Clint hated when he did that.

"Where are you from?" Clint had been more and more curious about Coulson every time he deflected or outright refused to answer a question. He should have known Clint would try harder. 

"If I tell you, will you quit asking me questions about myself?" Phil leaned his chin on his hands.

Clint shook his head. _No_. Clint would never do that. He didn't care about most people, but he hoarded everything truthful he got from Natasha and Phil. And in return, he offered up as much of himself as he could. He trusted them both and wanted them to have reasons to believe in him. For anything.

Clint didn't know much about it, but he was positive he loved them both beyond the team, beyond SHIELD, beyond the walls they had all constructed.

Natasha was always good at finding a crack and slipping in. And Phil.

Phil. He was a quiet bulldozer.

Not that he was ever going to tell either of them.

He jumped into it, no net, and waited for one of them to catch him. It had gotten less scary the more he did it.

And while he watched Phil stir melting ice in his water, he wanted to know when he'd finally jump.

He fought Clint every step for his trust, and all Clint wanted was for him to know he had it back.

Instead he said, "You can tell me, or you can buy me pancakes and fries?" He picked his menu back up. "Let me know soon. I told Steve where we might be. We're likely to get bombarded any time."

"Pancakes and fries?" Phil pretended to mull over his options. "As long as you drink some orange juice or something, Barton. I won't be responsible for your untimely demise."

“Says the guy that’s gonna order a peanut butter milkshake. I’ve got your number, dude. You aren’t fooling anyone.”

Clint smiled, but he wasn't feeling it. He ducked his head back down and picked at the table. He tried to tell himself that he wasn't disappointed. Again.

He was still having breakfast with someone he considered his friend. Since he didn't have many of those, he wasn't going to start pushing them away now.  
**

 

“Brought you something.” Phil was standing in the doorway to his hospital room, shaking a box.

Clit would recognize that sound anywhere. _Fries_. Thank fuck. Finally, real food.

“Am I allowed contraband, sir?” He tried to sit up. “I figured I was still on broth and stale bread.”

Natasha was off her chair and helping him before he realized he needed help. She wasn’t always there, and she never fluffed a single damned pillow, but she showed up when he needed him.

And she stayed.

Phil walked into the room, set the container on his bed, and went to lean on the windowsill.

“Thought I’d thank you,” Phil said in a low voice.

“Thank me? Coulson, that’s never happened before.” Clint tried to grin. He didn’t care if he failed miserably. “Did I save an important building from ruin or something?”

Natasha had a silent conversation with Phil that Clint was too tired and hospital hungover to interpret. She sat on the side of his bed and fed him fries, so he wasn’t going to complain that she was effectively trapping him. They could have used some ketchup, but he wasn’t complaining about food from Phil either.

He looked back at Phil, watched him roll his shoulders, noticed the tired lines around his eyes.

“Just wanted to say thank you. I think you deserve it.” Phil dropped his gaze and stared at Clint’s beeping monitor. “You saved my life.”

Clint turned to Natasha for confirmation on that. She nodded and linked her fingers with his.

“Well. You’re welcome then.” Clint turned to look at him but didn’t get past Phil’s dusty shoes. “Guess I’ll do it more if I keep getting food rewards.”

“You’re not a lab rat, Barton.” Phil smiled his small smile that Clint had started to associate with himself and Natasha.

“Feel like it right now.” He suddenly felt really sleepy. 

He stretched his other hand out to Phil and turned his head to smile at Natasha. Her eyebrows told him he was being an idiot.

“Go to sleep, Clint,” she said and brushed his hair back.

Phil closed his fingers around Clint’s and squeezed lightly.

Clint fell asleep in the middle of Phil and Natasha talking about the day’s events.  
**

 

“Have you seen him?”

Clint had asked almost everyone in the tower so far. He knew that Phil had gone on a solo mission for Fury, but he hadn't come back. Clint knew that he might not have even left the place because, as Tony was fond of saying, 'Fury lies.'

He couldn't shake the feeling, though, that something wasn't right.

Steve looked up from his book and gave Clint that look. The one that Steve should patent and sell to the world because people weren't able to resist it or him. He was always so comforting, so willing to take on anyone else's problems. Clint was usually shaken in the face of Steve.

"I haven't heard anything, Clint." Steve shrugged sympathetically. "If I knew something, you know I'd tell you."

Clint nodded and patted Steve on the shoulder as he passed him. "Thanks, buddy."

He decided to find Natasha and let her own ruthless brand of calm roll over him.

When he found her, she was on his bed reading a book and a mission docket at the same time because she was a freak. She was wearing one of his hoodies and didn't look up when he laid down beside her and rested his head on her hip.

She flipped a page. "He'll be back." Another page. "He's much more self-sufficient than you think, you know. Just because you have issues with being alone and gone so long, doesn't mean we all do." Another page.

"Thanks, Tash." Clint slapped her thigh. "Ever the helpful friend."

"You know what you need from me or you wouldn't be here interrupting my reading by breathing all over my ass."

"Well, it is a great ass," Clint joked, but he was breathing better and he could settle his eyes on one place for longer than three seconds. It wasn’t that he only worried about Phil.

He worried about Natasha when she was sent out on her own, and he breathed down Phil's neck while she was gone, and Phil reassured Clint with paperwork and practicing recipes. Hell, he even worried about Stark when he was too stupid to realize that he didn't have do things on his own anymore.

Clint could really appreciate the irony of that situation.

He was thinking about each of the other times he'd been left alone by either Phil or Tasha or both of them, and how everything turned out fine eventually.

He fell asleep on Tasha thinking about it.

 

He woke up upside down on his bed and covered with his own hoodie. His phone was beeping at him incessantly.

When he checked, he had two text messages: one was coordinates, the second was a time.

He didn’t bother seeing what time it currently was or calculating coordinates. He put the hoodie on and asked JARVIS where the numbers were taking him.

The messages were from Phil. Finally. He didn’t care where he was going, just as long as he got there on time.

Clint pulled up in front of a diner hours later. He had gotten calculated times and left anyway. He knew he was going to be early, but he could wait. Clint was great at waiting. Especially when he had a set ending and something to look forward to on the other side of it.

The other side was watching Phil pull up next to him and not even glance at him as he walked slowly into the diner.

Clint followed him. They sat at the counter, like they usually did when they weren’t in Brooklyn.

Phil smiled at him, tired and slow. Clint looked him over. He was dusty and rumpled, his suit hanging off him crookedly, and his tie undone a bit.

Clint looked away from him to find the waitress.

“Hey there,” he smiled in a bigger way than he felt. “Can we get two cups of coffee, a plate of fries, and a cup of soup?”

She nodded to him and smiled back.

“And an extra plate,” Phil said without looking away from Clint.

“I do like ketchup.” Clint twirled on his stool and leaned an elbow on the counter.

“Which is weird because you don’t like tomatoes.” Phil’s voice was raspy, but it was there and unwavering.

“You don’t like apple juice but will eat apples.” Clint shrugged. “Same thing.”

Phil just stared at him, conceding the point.

“Want to tell me what happened?” Clint picked at the napkin dispenser, made tiny balls of paper and thought about flicking them down the length of the counter.

“Classified, Barton.” Phil raised his eyebrows. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“Too messy?” Clint spun the paper, trying to make a top.

“No,” Phil replied thoughtfully. “I don’t know how I’d pay for breakfast.”

Their waitress set fries, soup, and drinks in front of them with a smile. Phil thanked her and Clint shuffled some of the fries around on the plate.

“So if you drove here, why am I here, sir?” Clint squeezed ketchup on a plate in front of him, swiped fries through it, and shoved them into his mouth, not tasting anything.

Phil stole a fry, chewed slowly. “Seriously, Barton. I needed someone to pay for this meal. I’m starving.”

Phil had basically just wanted to see him. It made Clint feel great and kind of warm.

Clint laughed at him, but didn’t press. Either Phil would tell him in his own time and Clint would file it away with everything else he knew about Phil, or he’d deflect and force Clint to forget he wanted know in the first place.

“Chicago,” Phil said in a hushed sort of voice.

“What?”

“I’m from Chicago, Clint.” Phil looked him straight in the eye, that small smile Clint knew so well on his face.

Clint knew his smile was growing, bordering on manic, but he didn’t care. He twisted in his seat a bit again, swirled some more ketchup around.

“So, is pizza your favorite food?” Clint was still smiling.

“I like pizza, you know that already.” It sounded like Phil was talking about something else. Clint didn’t know if he wanted to get into that yet. He wanted to savor this tiny victory, file it away with everything he knew about Phil, rearrange all the data around this one absolute truth.

“Yeah, but,” Clint shrugged. “That’s not Chicago pizza.”

“Still not my favorite food.” Phil stole some of Clint’s ketchup and ate his fries one at a time.

“I’ll figure this out.” Clint pointed a fry at him.

“Oh, I’m sure you will.” Phil squeezed Clint’s shoulder. “I have every confidence in you, Agent.”

“All I need, sir.” Clint wasn’t lying.

He flagged down the waitress again. “Can we get two chocolate milkshakes?”

Clint heard Phil’s small laugh. 

_All I need._


End file.
